Look Ma, No Hands... And No Pilot!
Proxy Aviation Systems,
developer of fully autonomous, optionally piloted unmanned aircraft
systems (UAS), announced Tuesday it has successfully completed
testing of the automatic take-off and landing (ATOL) capabilities
of SkyWatcher at a USAF-sponsored demonstration at Yuma Proving
Ground in Arizona.
SkyWatcher (pictured below) is a forward canard design,
looking much like the popular kitplane from Velocity on which it is
based.
The US Air Force sponsored and cooperated in the demonstration,
which took place at Yuma Proving Ground, Yuma, AZ on December 13,
2006.
Utilizing Proxy Aviation’s SkyForce distributed management
system and a flight control system produced by Geneva Aerospace,
SkyWatcher successfully performed several automatic take-offs and
landings, fully unmanned and autonomous, without user intervention
from the ground control station.
Proxy says the system performed flawlessly and met several
specific test objectives including, runway centerline tracking,
traffic pattern ground tracking, precise touch down point and
proper braking action.
"The Battlelab is particularly excited by the absence of any
ground-based equipment being needed to accomplish the take-offs and
landings. This demonstrates the ability to operate from austere
locations, a highly desirable feature for the Expeditionary Air
Force," said Greg Pierce, technical director the USAF's UAV
Battlelab.
SkyWatcher is the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance
(ISR) component of SkyForce, Proxy Aviation's comprehensive,
network-centric unmanned aircraft system designed to perform group
tactical goals and meet a wide range of mission requirements.
SkyForce consists of Proxy's mission-oriented software system, a
primary mission-management ground control station and mobile ground
control user terminals. Together, according to the company, these
elements are designed to control up to 12 fully autonomous air
vehicles engaging in concurrent, cooperative flight. Proxy says
SkyForce has the ability to make fully independent decisions during
flight without any human intervention.
This successful ATOL demonstration sets the stage for a planned
USAF-sponsored initial operational capabilities live fly
demonstration at Eglin Air Force Base in early February 2007.
"Proxy is excited to complete this major milestone on the road
to fully autonomous cooperative flight," said Don Ryan, CEO, Proxy
Aviation. "We believe that unmanned cooperative flight is the
future of military aviation and will vastly expand the boundaries
of what it is possible to accomplish with advanced unmanned
aircraft systems."
Proxy Aviation’s SkyForce distributed management system
also includes SkyRaider (above), a UAV designed for low- and
medium-altitude flight. Proxy says SkyRaider can meet a wide
range of mission requirements such as heavy-payload ISR, battle
damage assessment (BDA), urban warfare, communications data relay
and missions requiring the carriage and release of external
stores.